Peggi Medeiros: His Name was Bill: 12 step program's New Bedford connection

By Peggi Medeiros

Saturday

Apr 7, 2018 at 7:58 PMApr 7, 2018 at 7:58 PM

There is something I find entrancing about discovering overlooked history. I thought I knew the Grinnell Mansion very well. I was wrong. I had ignored the historian’s primary rule — never stop looking. I had also ignored the 20th century, to be very specific, World War I, and a young man named Bill.

When America finally entered the war in April 1917 the entire nation went on a war footing. The military barely existed. Almost overnight thousands of men had to be trained and shipped off primarily to France. Civilians were asked to make sacrifices. The Grinnell family moved out of their mansion and turned it over to the American Red Cross. It became a headquarters and a place of service.

At Fort Rodman, young officers were sent through basic training. As officers they were considered gentleman and as gentlemen they were invited to Red Cross social gatherings at the Grinnell Mansion. Members of the family hosted the officers.

Frederick Grinnell had been an engineer and founder of the General Fire Extinguisher Company based in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1894 having made an impressive fortune he returned to New Bedford and the granite mansion where he died in 1906. In 1915 his wife had died. His son, Lawrence, had inherited the mansion. He served in France and returned safely to New Bedford. It would have been his wife, Morgan and sister-in-law, Rose Grinnell who welcomed Bill to the mansion during the summer 1917.

Later Bill remembered his first visit had been on a Sunday evening. The group were served a supper of Welsh rarebit spiked with beer and large glasses of beer on the side. According to Chef Alton Brown, Rarebit is melted cheddar cheese, butter, Porter and cream served hot over toast. Bill really liked the beer.

His second visit was the one that made sad history. It was a party and cocktails were being served. Bill had a Bronx cocktail, a popular mix of gin, both dry and sweet vermouth, and orange juice. It was a lethal drink that went down too easy. Bill wrote, “That strange barrier that had existed between me and all men and women, even the closest, seemed to go instantly. I had found the elixir of life. Even that first evening I got thoroughly drunk, and within the next time or two I passed out completely. But as everyone drank hard, not too much was made of that.”

Bill Wilson had his first drink at the Grinnell Mansion and loved it. He went on to become a barely functioning alcoholic and stock speculator. He drank and drank and drank. By the 1930s he was warned that drinking would kill him. He had delirium tremors.

When he hit bottom something happened. “According to Wilson, while lying in bed depressed and despairing, he cried out, "I'll do anything! Anything at all! If there be a God, let Him show Himself!’ He then had the sensation of a bright light, a feeling of ecstasy, and a new serenity. He never drank again for the remainder of his life." The quotation comes from the Alcoholics Anonymous "Big Book."

Bill Wilson was the author of the book, which detailed the Twelve Step program. As of 2016, A.A. had more than 2 million members across the world.

In 2004 Susan Cheever wrote, "My Name is Bill, Bill Wilson: His Life and the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous." Her father, writer John Cheever, had taught Susan all about how alcoholism can destroy. She described that first New Bedford drink. “Bill had never seen a mansion like the Grinnell’s'.... [T]he glowing rooms and fragrant gardens beyond were filled with people chatting, drinking, and laughing. Bill didn't see anyone he knew.... Then there were the socialites, the men in evening clothes, and the butlers circulating with silver trays of glistening cocktails. Bill Wilson had never seen a butler.”

At every meeting of A.A., people still introduce themselves by saying, “My name is ____” The original A.A. service manual is still in print. Bill Wilson’s introduction is still in place.

He writes: “A.A. Fellowship gives; this is our principal aim and the main reason for our existence. Therefore, A.A. is more than a set of principles; it is a society of alcoholics in action. We must carry the message, else we ourselves can wither and those who haven’t been given the truth may die…. Hence, an A.A. service is anything whatever that helps us to reach a fellow sufferer— ranging all the way from the Twelfth Step itself to a ten-cent phone call and a cup of coffee.”

Beside the visit from Lincoln and the shelter of Harriet Jacobs, Bill Wilson has to be added to the legacy of the Grinnell Mansion.

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